A. Field
The invention relates to providing “ringback” media, e.g., tones, music, speech or other media, to a caller's phone. Ringback is the ringing or other sound that a caller hears while waiting for the called party to answer the phone.
B. Related Art
In traditional phone systems, a switch in telephone network plays a ringback tone to the calling party. The switch may be at caller's end of the call or at the called party's end of the call. More recently developments have given rise to a concept sometimes known as “colored ringback.” With colored ringback, a non-conventional ringback is provided to the caller. The ringback media could be a celebrity voice saying something like “Hold on a sec . . . ”, or some specified music or the like. The way colored ringback service works (as an example) is that the originating switch (serving the calling party) or terminating switch (serving the called party) may, with possible assistance from an intelligent network (AIN) node such as a service control point (SCP) or the like, determine that the called party (or perhaps the calling party) subscribes to the colored ringback service. The switch may then actually connect the caller with a service node or other platform that will play the colored ringback to the caller, while the switch tries to connect the call through to the called party. Once the called party answers, the switch will then connect the call to the called party, disconnecting the call from the colored ringback platform. Colored ringback tones could be defined/selected based on the identity of the caller and/or called party.
Instead of having a switch or other network infrastructure provide colored ringback service, U.S. patent application publication 2004/0081304 contemplates having the called device itself provide the colored ringback service. Once the called party answers the call (goes off-hook), the called device would then stop playing the colored ringback and allow the call to proceed.
Further art of interest includes Bog et al., US Patent application publication 2005/0152345; Takeuchi, U.S. Patent application publication 2002/0183048; Gilbert et al., U.S. Patent application publication 2004/001518; Azuma et al., US Patent application publication 2002/0024957; and Lowe, US Patent application publication 2005/0185918.
Playing a ringback tone from the called party directly (as mentioned in 2004/0081304) has several drawbacks, particularly so when the called party is a cellular telephone. First, there is utilization of network resources at the terminating side of the network (i.e., resources such as channel elements, traffic channels, and other resources involved in communicating with the called party). Conservation of such resources is desirable. Second, a longer delay at the terminating side due to setting up and transmitting ringback tones from the called party degrades the caller's user experience. The terminating network has to page the mobile unit and set up a traffic channel. The delay ranges typically from 2 to over 5 seconds. Paging retries may occur as well. Thirdly, the technique keeps the terminating phone busy, and uses the limited computing resources at the terminating phone.
There is a need in the art for a method and system by which the calling party can use ringback media features that are customized for particular calling parties, but which reduces having to generate such ringback media at the called device and avoids the above-mentioned drawbacks.